I grew up a Yankee fan, I favor Pitchers whenever possible, I am a stathead, and my dream job is to be a GM for an MLB franchise. In the summer, I go to MLB games and catch baseballs. In the winter, I write about what teams are doing to get better or worse. I try to be positive and unbiased in my writing, but that isn't always possible when evaluating teams truthfully.

Collected Baseball knick-knacks

Over the past year and a half, I have gone to a whole mess of baseball games. While my primary focuses at these games have been to collect baseballs and watch the games themselves, I have acquired a lot of items. This entry is to show exactly how much I have acquired throughout not just the past year and a half, but my 17 year old lifetime of going to baseball games. Before I get started on listing the things, I want to clarify that I didn’t get all of these things at the games, but rather, these were all things that I acquired because I go/went to games and am interested in baseball. Really, this is just miscellaneous baseball stuff that I have come into ownership of through one way shape or form.

Although I have come across many unique items, my baseball collection is the one that has brought me to most of the games I have gone to. Therefore,

it is worthy of the first (even though it is of lower quality than the other) picture.

Over my “career” going to games and catching baseballs, I have snagged 222. This photo does not show all of them, only the ones I have kept. The two are different because I have given away a substantial amount of the 222 to different kids and others at the games that I have gone to.

Next are the foul balls that I have gotten during the game itself:

(isn’t the quality a lot better on that picture?)

The balls are as follows:

1. A foul ball hit by Chuck Knoblauch when I was about five or six. I was sitting in the third deck of the Old Yankee Stadium.

3. A Nate McLouth foul ball and my first caught on the fly. Here is a link to my blog entry on that game.

4. An Angel Pagan foul ball. Here is the link to the article written about it, and here is the link to my blog entry on that game.

To highlight a particularly interesting ball in my collection, here is a ball I suspect is from the 1950s or 60s. This is because it was found in my grandfather’s things and he lived close to San Francisco (which didn’t get an MLB team until then), and because I found out, through e-mailing a few credible people, that it was signed by commissioner Giles who had his name on the ball from 1951-1969.

Next are my baseballs that were not snagged at a baseball game, but bought or given to me as a gift to me. I would go through them and explain each one, but some are self-explanatory and most are not worth explaining.

I do have other baseballs that fit into this category, but they were more beat up balls that I have made their way into my collection from baseball teams I have been a part of throughout the years, and I didn’t want to make it seem like those were the majority of my non-MLB collection, because if you click on that picture and zoom in, there are some pretty cool baseballs. For example, the bottom one is a Babe Ruth ball i.e. if you flip it horizontally and then vertically, you will get a bio of Babe Ruth.

Next in my completely arbitrary order of importance are framed baseball things. Among those, the first picture is of the item that is pictured in my gravatar profile picture (that would be the picture that shows up next to me when I comment on another blog within the realm of WordPress):

The story behind this is that, my dad was looking for a Christmas present for me in 2010 and either found this picture or remembered of it. The original actually started with “I’m a hawk”, but my dad inserted the “ball” part to individualize it for me.

Next, I have a portrait of David Cone given to me by a friend who knew how much I loved baseball and knew I would take care of it.

But wait, there’s more! The backside is signed by a few people, two of which I can somewhat recognize:

Finally, the last framed item is a map of all major league stadiums that I got from my dad that same Christmas (Yes, he was very generous to me.).

If you can see, there are White pins placed in certain cities. This means that I have visited a stadium in that city. The Black boxes on either side of the map specify which stadium I have visited when it comes to that franchise that city and league i.e. I have visited both the Metrodome and Target Field and so both of those boxes should be Blacked- out (even if I still haven’t marked that I have visited Target Field). The Yellow flag shows the next stadium I plan to visit, the Green represents my favorite stadium, and the Blue my last stadium visited.

Next are the non-framed baseball things. What do I mean by this? For example, this Joe Mauer head would be a non-framed baseball thing.

I got this while at the Minnesota State Fair. I was in town to go to the Metrodome for three games before the Twins moved into Target Field and my dad and I decided to go because a) he was from Minnesota and b) the State Fair is the second largest in the country behind Texas (everything’s bigger in Texas). They have an unofficial theme of anything your heart desires being available on a stick. I don’t know if this is a play on that, but I got it at the Qwest stand as they were handing them out for free.

The next item, I guess, is this random Fenway Park sign.

I honestly have no idea how I got this. It was probably another scenario where a friend of my parents knew I was really into baseball and gave me this thing that they had. Other than that I can’t explain it. I was raised a Yankee fan and still don’t care that much for the Red Sox. I tried actually rooting for them for a season, but it just felt wrong. I no longer have the same love for the Yankees and I still respect the Red Sox (chicken murdering and all), but by no stretch of the imagination do I root for them to succeed. Nevertheless, this banner type thing does allow me to do a few photographic gags.

Next in the, seriously I’m making this up as I go along, order of items is my baseball card “collection”. I really only bought cards for half a season. Maybe it’s because I’m of the computer generation where a player’s stats can be found within three clicks, but they really didn’t do anything for me. So, the majority of my collection comes from people who were collectors in their younger years giving me their baseball cards.

I think the highest stack (upper left) is about 75 cards, and you can kind of tell how tall the other ones are in relation to that one. For the record, I DO have more cards, but they are somewhere in a box or underneath my bed and I have no desire to go looking for them as I have enough things to do. I would say my entire baseball card collection is in the 500 range.

Just to be clear, these are no longer non-framed baseball things. I am now just going in the random order that I took the pictures of the things in. The next item in said order is the Gatorade towel Josh Thole gave me at Nationals Park on 7/30/11.

It is actually a pretty good story as to how that happened. so click the link I provided for you on the 7/30/11 and scroll about 80% of the way down the page.

As a ballhawk, one of the tricks of the trade is to own a hat and shirt of both teams. Here is my collection of baseball related hats.

The next item is a result of my strategy. I actually don’t know how many other ballhawks do this, but I do it, probably as a result of my paranoia in always thinking that players will recognize me. Anyway, I bring a neutral hat and shirt to most games. Here are all of the neutral hats that I wore in 2011:

Finally, here are all my MLB shirts:

For whatever reason, all the pictures of the shirts came out blurry. I would take a few more shots, but it is REALLY annoying to take all of the shirts out of my drawers and align them for a few pictures before putting them all back.

And what is being a Yankee fan without having two mugs for the coffee I never drink?

The one on the left I think I got around the same age I got the Chuck Knoblauch foul ball. The one on the right, is a pretty recent headline and this is one of those where I have no recollection of how I got it.

Sticking with the cup theme, here is a cup I bought with my dad the first time I went to the baseball Hall of Fame (I have gone 3-4 times since and could probably go another 20 if it weren’t a 6 hour drive).

Note the indentation in the bottom of the glass.

Next is (partially)my collection of programs and pocket schedules. I write partially because I have about ten others, but can’t find them. I hope they’re not lost because there were a few good ones. Like a Phillies program when they won the World Series and a Giants program with Tim Lincecum on the cover from the April after he won his first Cy Young, entitled “So Good, So Young.”

Next are the tickets individual to the first baseball trip I ever took. It was: drive down to Philadelphia for two games against the Dodgers, drive back up right after the second game ended, fly to Detroit that same morning, watch the Tigers take on the Indians, take a bus to Pittsburgh, and watch the Brewers take on the Pirates for three games.

All of the series were sweeps and the highlights were, Pedro Feliciano hit a 3 run walk-off HR in I think double digit innings, Cliff Lee got his 19th win of the year to go along with only 2 losses at that point. At that point he was a one-year wonder and the Ace to replace CC Sabathia who had been traded to the Brewers and had been doing amazing as he was 5-0 at this point with the Brewers. Speaking of Sabathia, my next highlight came when he threw what should have been a no-hitter, but the Pittsburgh scorer gave one of the “Laroche”s a hit on a dribbler that Sabathia dropped, citing that it was an above average play for the man who had barehanded a line drive to him the previous inning. I may eventually get around to blogging about these games, but it probably won’t be until next year as I am and predict to be very busy until then.

Next are the variety of rosters I have printed out to know who the players are on the teams in the game that I happened to watch that day.

Notice that some have pictures. Usually this only happens on trips because when I am at home I am more pressed for time, and yes, I did print out a roster for the umpires (third from the top and left).

If you’re thinking that all the games I go to must produce a lot of tickets, here is an emphatic “YES!”

I apologize for the shoddy lasso job, although I am mildly skilled in the art of Photoshop, I can’t afford it for my home computer.

Ha, you thought those were all my tickets.

Those were only my electronic tickets. Pictured above are my “stubs”, I guess you could call them. These aren’t necessarily only tickets to baseball games, but they are pertaining to baseball. For example, I took two excursions while I was in Atlanta. Can you find the tickets to these two separate places’ tickets?

Next is my (partial) collection of signed items. Partial because I had 17 signed balls at the beginning of the year, but gave away about 15 of them.

Andy Pettitte

Luke Gregorson and Mike Adams (as you may be able to read from the little tabs that I have with every signed ball)

Rollie Fingers. Yes, his mustache does look just a little bit funnier in person.

Tony Cruz a.k.a. the back up catcher for the Cardinals.

Ryota Igarashi

Jonny Venters

Doug Slaten and Emilio Bonifacio

Drew Storen

Now we begin the cycle of random baseball things with two Mets bobbleheads.

Pretty self-explanatory, right?

Starting in 2006, I vote for the All-Star Game via the paper ballots every stadium has out. I also have kept a few from the last few years:

This next one I received for my birthday and didn’t think it quite fit in with the MLB T-Shirt picture. So I decided to make it its own picture.

Again, here are two framed cards that I didn’t think quite fit in the “framed things” category nor the “baseball cards” picture.

The first is explained by the fact that my two favorite players growing up were Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire. Sad, I know. The second was given to me in conjunction with the Babe Ruth ball I elaborated on in the “non-MLB baseballs” picture.

Here, are two pitching figurines I have no idea how they came into my possession. What I do know is that they are supposed to be Don Drysdale and Roger Clemens, respectively.

Here is another figurine of the (Old?) Yankee Stadium with a baseball for perspective.

Here are the Ice Cream Helmets I used to collect with my dad when we went to stadiums.

I may continue this in the future, but probably won’t remember to do so for every stadium.

Next are the gloves I used in 2011 and 2010, in order of usage.

Now we get into the items I have received as part of promotions by teams. Starting with the Nationals’ schedule for 2012.

Here we have a fan type thing the Yankees gave away. The Yankees don’t have many promotions and they usually aren’t that good, because they are usually companies just trying to advertise. There are exceptions, but for the most part, the Yankees don’t need promotions to get people to come to the ballpark.

Next are some sunglasses that the Mets gave out early in the year. I usually brought them to games as a further affirmation of my paranoia that players would recognize me (another disguise).

The next picture is a lunchbox that I got on that same trip to Philadelphia in 2008.

Did I mention that Manny had just gotten to the Dodgers recently before that series and the Phillies fans were already booing him. When my dad asked a fan in the upper deck, “Why are you booing him? He just got here. He couldn’t’ve done anything to you ALREADY, right?” the Phillie fan responded, “Oh, we boo everyone.”

Next are two promotional items I got when I was in Pittsburgh on that same trip. The first is a wall-clock. The second is a commemorative plate.

Next are my three non-Met baseball bobble heads. They should be pretty easy to identify considering the names are on the bases.

Here, is a link to a picture of the Jose Reyes cape I got for the Mets’ promotion, Fiesta Latina. This comes because the pictures I took of mine are blurry beyond belief.

Here are two shirts (front and back) that I got by going to Nats games at the end of the year. The first is a promotional “Strasburg Returns” shirt and the second is a “PNC Virtual Wallet T-shirt Toss” shirt.

Finally, my last baseball items that I have photographic proof of are… my baseball books.

For the record, I *do* have Moneyball, but I usually recommend it to people and said recommendation usually ends in me lending that book to said people.

If you got to this point in the entry, I commend you. I hope that you at least got a chuckle off of how much a person can be obsessed with baseball enough to write an entry this long.

I actually don’t *read* that many baseball books. I would say that I have probably read less than half of the books on that shelf. The thing is, I start a book, but then someone suddenly buys me a new baseball book, and I feel obligated to start that. The one I am most eager to finish is “The EXTRA 2%”. It just seems like i never have any time to just sit and read. That said, I will get “Shoeless Joe” on my own because of your recommendation. Did I mention I haven’t watched many Baseball movies either? Anyway, thanks for the suggestion and comment.

Shoeless Joe is in my opinion the best baseball book written; it was the premiss for the best baseball movie ever…field of dreams. Kinsella was a Canadian author that wrote dozens of fantastic books about baseball the best is Thrill of the Grass which contains the story The Last Pennant Before Armageddon.

I’ll be the first to admit my handwriting is atrocious. I assume you’re talking about the little strips which I label the baseballs with, and those actually make my handwriting WORSE. I usually write larger than average to make my letters more legible, but those strips are at most two centimeters tall, and I’m trying to fit three lines of writing on them. Also, I did them all within five minutes, so i was rushed on top of that. Whatever, I can read it so that’s really all that matters when looking at them retrospectively. For the record, I am 17. My handwriting was even worse, if you can imagine, when I was eight. I can maybe make out every other word from writing I did at the time.

I HAVE owned the app since June 2010, but that was on the iPod Touch I had, and you can’t report about games you go to on that, because there is no WiFi at those games. I guess I could more often now that I have an iPhone, but there are so many other things that you have to remember to bring and do on a game day that it is just hard to remember to do it. I’ll try to do it more often next season, though. Thanks.

Have you ever tried adding these games to espn passport? I use it and it keeps track of how many wins each team gets when you go and where youve been and stuff like that. definitely cool if youre a sports/stats geek like me. its free too. cool collection

Thanks for commenting. None of the four was actually bought for me. I actually bought all four of them for my parents. The first was my for my dad. The second was for my dad when my pitching started hurting his hand. The third was for my step-dad, but he’s from Colombia and I injured him when we played catch with a tennis ball. The last was for my mom, and she can play catch, but starts getting afraid and dropping balls once I start putting a little velocity for the ball. An alternate usage I have for it is I actually have my hard-to-remember internet password there, because the map hangs smack dab in the middle of my room.

Cool stuff, Mateo. I just got that map of the US with all the stadiums this year as a Christmas gift! I’m excited to start sticking all those pins in it. I especially like that you’ve got 4 baseball gloves and you keep them all.
~Matt

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Observing Baseball Classics

"The Baseball" Book Review
In this entry I reviewed/summarized the entirety of the book “The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, and Secrets Beneath the Stitches” written by Zack Hample.

10/19/10 ALCS: Yankee Stadium
Sure I had no clue how to write it, but this was my first ballhawking entry ever and my only of 2010, so it falls under the category “classic”

Ballhawk Charities 2012
Where I went over the four ballhawk charities I had heard of at the beginning of the season as a way of helping them out by getting the word out.

Case Study on Morality in Baseball
A research paper I did way back in the summer of 2010. I don’t necessarily agree with everything I wrote back then anymore, but it does add an interesting perspective to things especially in today’s steroid talk.

Collected Baseball Knick-knacks
Quite simply: pretty much everything baseball-related that I had collected and managed to keep ahold of as of November, 20, 2011.

Dissecting/Deconstructing Baseballs
I’ve taken apart several baseballs before, and it was fun, so I decided to make a video of me taking apart a baseball and adding tips for other people to do so too.

Favorite MLB Players
I did probably one of my funner videos on who my favorite players were from the present day, when I first started watching baseball, and my favorite player that I never saw play at all.

Houlihan Park Tour and Snagging Analysis
This is my high school, Fordham Prep,’s home field, which being the manager of the varsity team for three years, I spent proabably more games here than at any other baseball field. So when I returned to my high school for a day, I took a quick tour of the

Observing Baseball Trivia
See the description of the link two links above, but modify it slightly so it fits this entry’s title.

Pitching Aces in the Playoffs
My first ever “real” entry that I ever wrote back on the surplus of star pitchers in the 2010 playoffs. It was pretty good considering I knew nothing about blogging, or writing in general for that matter.

Pure Genius
This is just me explaining how the Phillies got three aces of pitchers; nothing fancy. But it was me showing my first flash of general manager mind to the world, so that’s why I like it.

Sabermetrics (the explanation)
This was me explaining some simple sabermetric statistics for the people of the world who have heard of the stats but never really knew what significance they had/have over the more common metrics. I take pride in this because it can potentially educate s

Survey of Adults Perception of Baseball
I surveyed a bunch of my teacher as to which baseball player was there favorite; both in and outside of New York. It’s a bit more complex than that, but the only way to understand is to read the entry.

Tour Target Field in the Snow
Target Field is in Minnesota, so it only felt fitting that I should take at least one day to tour it while it was buried in the snow. And that’s what this entry was: a video of me going around Target Field while it was snowing and there was a ton of snow

Weird Observing Baseball Facts and Records
I may yet do this every year…and it would then become its own link category–but for the meantime–there is only one set of Observing Baseball Facts and Records, so it definitely goes under “Observing Baseball Classics”.

Blast from the Baseball Past

8/24/08 Dodgers at Phillies: Citizens Bank Park
My second ever game to CBP that ended with Pedro Feliz hitting a three-run walk-off home run while my dad and I were in the car because we had to catch a flight to Detroit seven hours later that same day in New York.

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